Bible Text: Luke 4:13-19 | Preacher: Pastor Dorry Newcomer | Recently I bought myself a globe.  I’ve been wanting one off and on over the years.  Every time I do a children’s sermon about UMCOR, or it’s World Communion Sunday, or I want to show people how far it is from here to wherever we might be talking about God being at work in the world, I think “I should really get a globe!”  But I find a way to make do without one, and life goes on…until I inevitably find myself again wishing I had a globe!

Since we are now in 2020, and this is the year everything comes into focus, I decided to stop wishing for a globe and went out and bought one.  I picked this one from Amazon because it was reasonably priced and got a five-star rating.  I was so excited for it to come!  But as you can see, something is amiss.  It’s not broken—it’s just not put together yet.  It makes sense that they would ship the globe unassembled.  It requires a much smaller box that way.  But there’s something really unsatisfying about a globe that isn’t a globe!

Turns out, all that is keeping these various pieces from being a complete globe is a simple Phillips head screwdriver.  I happen to have one of those right here.  But if for some reason no screwdriver could be found, we’d be stuck, wouldn’t we?  Our pieces of globe would remain exactly that, just pieces.  Thankfully, we’ve got the screwdriver, and I’ve asked Tom to be our handy assistant today.  He’s going to put the globe together for us now while I keep talking.

When Jesus commissioned his disciples to go into all the world, he envisioned us going to every part of the globe, every nation under the sun, to preach the gospel.  But we also know there is a whole other world that isn’t represented by any globe.  We celebrated it already today when we sang, “I’ll Fly Away” in honor of Ann.  We sang that song as part of our worship because we give our thanks and praise to God for that other world that awaits us all.  It’s a world Ann is already fully enjoying, a world where we live in a new kind of body that never ages or decays, where we live with new hearts that never get wounded, and renewed minds that never get distracted or forgetful.  Ann is already enjoying this other world, where there is no more suffering, no more pain, no more anxiety or strife of any kind.  We can barely imagine what that will be like, to live forever in a world like that.

For now, all we get is glimpses of it.  The first time I watched Grant and Connor’s video, it brought tears to my eyes, but I wasn’t sure why.  But as I thought about it, maybe it has something to do with this other world.  Their testimony gives us a glimpse of the beauty that awaits when we live in a world where people are free to be their truest and best selves.  In a few minutes we will again celebrate this other world as we take communion, a holy moment in the life of the church when we are gifted with a taste of what is to come:  when we are nourished by the body and blood of Christ, and our hearts are healed by the intensity of the love shown, and our minds renewed by the outpouring of his grace.  Jesus gave us the sacrament of communion so we could remember and take in—and take with us—this other world.

For now, we still live in bodies that age and decay, we still have hearts that get wounded, we still have minds that get distracted and forgetful.  But we are gathered together for worship today because we have discovered there is another reality to this life, and that reality is Jesus, Emmanuel, God with us.  That reality allows us to live anywhere on earth while still also living with heavenly hope, peace, joy and love.  We can live in two worlds at once:  our earthly world, and our heavenly world, which we often call the Kingdom of God.

And for almost all of us, the way we came to know of this other world was through the church.  It might have been in worship, or Sunday school, or Vacation Bible school, or church camp, or youth group, or Bible study, or a combination of many of these things.  That’s how it happened for me!  I was so blessed to be part of a church that showed a whole new world to me.  A world where I was loved and accepted and valued.  A world where I could have peace and joy.  A world where I could be forgiven and set free.  A world where I can live now, even as I inhabit this earthly body in earthly places, and where I will live forever when this old body one day gives out.  I can’t imagine going through life without knowing about this whole other world!

I’ll bet you can’t imagine it, either.  I love that Lima United Methodist Church has always been committed to being a church that opens up a whole new world to people.  And that is why adopting a Statement of Affirmation and Inclusion is so important.  We can make a public declaration, that all it is our desire to see all people, regardless of sexual orientation or gender identity, participate without hindrance in the full life of this church.  I know many of you support such a public declaration.  The poster in the narthex has already been signed by the chairperson or chairpersons of almost every committee in our church, and I hope you will consider signing it, too.

But for some of us, signing a statement like that is an idea that will require overcoming some hindrances of our own.  And to that I say, wonderful!  Because we have tools for that!  I think the main hindrance for most people has to do with wanting to be faithful to scripture.  Most of us were taught that the Bible condemns homosexuality, and so we get nervous about going against that.  I used to be nervous about that, too.  But with more study, I have become convinced it is possible to advocate for full inclusion in the church and be faithful to scripture.  Included with your bulletin this morning is a little study guide the reconciling team prepared to help us overcome that burden.

I hope you will take time to use that in the weeks ahead.  It has made a huge difference for me.  In fact, I and many of the key leaders in this church have become so convinced that being faithful to scripture allows us to advocate for full inclusion in the church, we now believe it compels us to do so.  I know not everyone sees it that way, and as Bishop Johnson has often said, “There are people of good faith on both sides of this issue.”  I have many dear clergy colleagues who see this differently than me, and I am blessed to partner in ministry with many lay people who see things differently than me.  While we all journey with Christ, we do not all journey the same path.  As we approach General Conference in May, we are all grieving, knowing that some of our brothers and sisters in our denomination, and maybe even in our local congregation, will be going in different directions in the days ahead.

And because of that reality, some people might claim the church is broken.  But I don’t think the church is broken.  It’s just not fully assembled yet.  We haven’t yet found the tool, the Phillips head screwdriver that can put our world together for us.  Or, more accurately, we have found it, and it is the sacrifice of Christ.  But as citizens of two kingdoms at once, we are not yet able to live in the fullness of the unity Christ died and rose to bring into being.

I think we all wish we had the power to keep the United Methodist Church from splitting, but we have to remember that God has the whole world in his hands, even the United Methodist Church.  But just because we don’t have the tools to fix everything doesn’t mean we don’t have the tools to fix some things.  We can’t control the denomination.  But we do have the power to become a congregation that can open up a whole new world to people who currently are not fully included in the church, specifically people whose sexual identity and expression differ from our own experience.  We have the power to demonstrate that they are loved and valued and gifted and appreciated.  I want to re-iterate that adopting such a statement does NOT mean we will violate the Book of Discipline.  Grant and Connor got married in their church, a United Methodist congregation that discerned over time it needed to go against the Discipline.  That is happening in many parts of the country, and that choice has nothing to do with becoming a Reconciling Congregation.  Adopting a statement of inclusion means we want to affirm people who have all too often been rejected by the church, but it does not mean we will break the rules of our denomination.

When you think back on your own faith journey, someone or a group of someones figured out what you needed in order to comprehend and choose to live in the Kingdom of God.  Someone went out and found, or crafted by hand, the Phillips head screwdriver that you needed to put this other world together for you and help you find your place in it.  Thank God for those people!  Now it is our turn to do that for others.  But first, we will have to do a little work to assemble ourselves.  We have many tools available to us, including studying scripture if that is an obstacle for us.  We can also learn from people like Grant and Connor, who feel strongly that God has brought them together, and who want their marriage to honor God and bless the world.  We can take an inventory of our hearts and honestly assess how much of our resistance comes from what we absorbed growing up in our society rather than what God’s word actually teaches.  We can admit that new things make us uncomfortable, but just because we’re uncomfortable doesn’t mean we’re not right where God wants us.  We can commit this season of Lent to fasting and praying, asking God to show us where God would lead us.  I fully expect that we will not all be led in the same direction.  But if we have to part ways, at least we will be able to say we are doing that in good faith.  Our grief will be tempered by the peace that comes from fully surrendering ourselves to God.

During this season of Lent, we remember that Jesus always resisted the temptation of easy answers and quick fixes.  We remember how he always stayed true to his mission of setting free those who were oppressed by the religious dictates of his day.  He followed the Spirit into the wilderness, where his devotion was tested and refined.  He followed the Spirit to the cross, choosing to sacrifice his old life so we could have new life.  Jesus did the hard work of good faith, fully aware that doing this hard work would lead to him having to let go of something valuable.  The reality is, in time we will all have to let go of something valuable to us.  The only question is, will we do that as a result of our good faith, and allow God to redeem our sacrifice?  Or will we do that in resistance to God, and only add to our suffering?

(Hold up a fully assembled globe)  Friends, let’s keep faith:  God has the whole world in God’s hands!  Praise God for that!  But God has given work for our hands to do as well.  During this Lenten season, I pray we will follow our Master, and do our hard work of good faith, so we may take hold of the new life that awaits, as we live more fully into the other world Christ has prepared for us, the Kingdom of God.  In the name of Jesus, Amen.